CULP: Spanish Upper-Intermediate through Stories and Film

Prerequisites£

A language course for students who have an intermediate command of the Spanish Language (completed B1), ideally suited to those students who have completed the CULP Intermediate 2 course or have taken Spanish at GCSE Level. The level is upper-intermediate.

For more detailed information about the course please visit our website.

• University staff and students
• Further details regarding Language Centre eligibility criteria are available

• CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference): B2

Number of sessions: 15

Among others, these legends/stories (graded at B2) and films will be used in this course: Stories:

• Los árboles de flores blancas (a legend from Mexico)
• Pedro de Candía (a legend from Bolivia)
• Los amantes de Teruel (a legend from Spain)
• Quetzal no muere nunca (a legend from Guatemala)
• La lengua de las mariposas (a short story from Spain)
• El barco vacío (a legend from Venezuela and Argentina)

Films:

• Como agua para chocolate (Alfonso Arau, Mexico)
• Diarios de motocicleta (Walter Salles, Argentina, Chile, Perú)
• Volver (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain)
• El cuerno de la abundancia (Juan Carlos Tabío, 2008)
• Ocho apellidos vascos (Emilio Martínez Lázaro, Spain)
• El secreto de sus ojos (Juan José Campanella, Argentina)

8El laberinto del fauno (Guillermo del Toro, Mexico, Spain)

By the end of the course students will be able to:

• Listening/Speaking: Contribute effectively to discussions about mythical, historical and geographical topics as portrayed in the oral tradition and film and keep up a casual conversation with a good degree of fluency, coping with narrative and some idiomatic expressions.
• Reading: Read graded written works and film reviews with a good degree of understanding, enough to cope with an advanced course, to read the media for information as well as to understand some non-standard pieces.
• Writing: Construct a narrative/descriptive piece and write a well-structured essay about a story and a film and/or other topics of their interest.

The Course will introduce students to the following upper-intermediate learning skills:

• Achieve spoken fluency whilst using appropriate vocabulary and descriptive/narrative grammatical structures;
• Apply their language skills effectively to story-telling;
• Acquire an understanding of the main aspects of mythical, historical, political and cultural events connected with the countries where Spanish is spoken;
• Get introduced to some colloquial Spanish spoken in several countries through the audio-visual input;
• Improve their reading and writing skills, with an emphasis on the narrative/descriptive styles;
• Improve their delivery of oral presentations and debate in Spanish.

The Course aims also to empower the learners and establish them as life-long language learners.

• Presentations, practicals and online learning

• Raven access is required
• Further information regarding Raven is available

• Students Fees: £285 to be paid online. Please select ‘Concessionary’ under the course fee when you make your booking.
• Staff Fees: £320 to be paid online. Please select ‘All charged’ under the course fee when you make your booking.
• Links to the online store will be provided with your confirmation email.
• Payment is required within 24 hours of your booking to secure your place.
• Refunds available after the first lesson only.
• Payment for the courses is made on the Online Store (CULP General Purpose courses), (Raven log in).
• Course materials can be found on Moodle (Raven log in), once the course has started.

This course will be assessed upon the completion of the submission of 2 essays (one for stories and one for films), an oral presentation and participation and attendance (attendance required is at least 12/15 sessions). Upon completion, students will be awarded a Certificate of attendance issued by the Language Centre.

• Students are required to attend 80% of sessions
• Full details of all Language Centre programmes can be found on the [Language Centre website http://www.langcen.cam.ac.uk/culp] and Language Centre Online website.

• Fifteen taught sessions of two hours plus online learning

• Three times per year (subject to demand)

• CULP: Spanish Advanced
• CULP: Spanish Intermediate 1
• CULP: Spanish Basic 1
• CULP: Spanish Basic 1 - SEMI-INTENSIVE
• CULP: Spanish Basic 2